C. John Sommerville – författare

In this provocative work, Sommerville examines the onset of secularization in sixteenth and seventeenth-century England, exploring how and why various aspects of life - art, language, work, play, technology, and power - became divorced from religious values.The work helps modern readers understand what life was like in an age in which religion suffused society and was as basic to thought as the structure of language. Sommerville argues that secularization began earlier in England than many historians believe - even before Henry VIII's seizure of power over the church in the 1530s - and that it advanced in concert with the Protestant Reformation. As more aspects of daily life were divorced from religious values and controls, religious culture was supplanted by religious faith, a reasoned (rather than an unquestioned) belief in the supernatural.

This is the first book to analyse the essential feature of periodical media, which is their periodicity. Having to sell the next issue as well as the present one changes the relation between authors and readers--or customers--and subtly shapes the way that everything is reported, whether politics, the arts and science, or social issues. So there are certain biases that are implicit in the dynamics of news production or commodified information, quite apart from the intentions of journalists.The story of the first century of periodical media in England shows how soon publishers mastered this entirely new treatment of knowledge. And it shows how soon the public despite certain misgivings, adopted a news consciousness that was at odds with the "print consciousness" which Marshall McLuhan described. The colorful pioneers of journalism history seem different when seen first as entrepreneurs, creating a market for the most ordinary sort of information, rather than as heroes of enlightenment and liberty.Looking closely at the publications themselves rather than recounting the struggles of journalists reveals more of what readers were actually faced with. It also suggests how periodicity would begin to shape their minds. Further, it indicates how the very immaturity of the early media allowed them to perform their function of initiating discussion, and how soon a commercial maturity undermined that function, leading to deficiencies which are now widely lamented but little understood.

Sommerville argues that a secular world view is propagated not just through American higher education, but public education, the media, and the courts despite their professed commitment to neutrality. The triumph of postmodern multiculturalism and the demise of Western Civilization courses, he says, have left students unable to make sense of the world in which they live. Moreover the secular university, again despite professed neutrality, demonstrates the most condescending type of moralizing without nurturing ethical reflection. Sommerville considers how religiously-informed scholarship might enrich various academic disciplines. He examines the market forces that have created what he calls the post-secularist university but may also have opened the door for theologians to challenge the prevailing nihilism. Finally, he invites the reader to imagine a university where religion is not ruled out but rather welcomed at least as one legitimate voice among others. Sommervilles bracing and provocative argument is sure to provoke controversy and stimulate discussion both inside and outside the academy.